Police officers detained Alexey Navalny who violated the terms of his house arrest and came to downtown Moscow

Alexey Navalny being detained in central Moscow

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Opposition figure Alexey Navalny, who violated the terms of his house arrest and came to downtown Moscow, will be brought home, the Main Department of the Russian Interior Ministry in the Russian capital said Tuesday.

“Police officers detained Alexey Navalny, who violated the house arrest regime. In a joint effort with the Federal Penitentiary Service, he will be taken to the place of his registration,” the department said.

Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky Court on Tuesday handed down a 3.5-year suspended sentence to Alexey Navalny and sentenced to 3.5 years in prison his brother Oleg Navalny after finding both of them guilty of embezzlement in the Yves Rocher company.

The court also ordered Alexei and Oleg Navalny to pay over 4 million rubles ($70,500) in favor of a complainant company in the trial as well as 500,000 rubles ($8,800) each in fines.

After that, reports on an unauthorized protest rally on downtown Moscow’s Manezhnaya Square appeared in social networks.

Navalny will remain house arrest until his suspended sentence takes legal effect. Earlier, that measure of restraint was extended for him until mid-February.

In 2013, Alexey Navalny was convicted in the Kirovles case. He and ex-head of the Vyatka Timber Company Pyotr Ofitserov were found guilty of embezzling Kirovles company property. Navalny got a five-year suspended sentence, and Ofitserov a 4 year suspended sentence.